


Mispelling Fate - Prequel

by blueneptunium



Series: Mispelling Fate [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, It's really just percy and jason, M/M, the others are there for like two seconds, they're in college btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 08:58:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19195717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueneptunium/pseuds/blueneptunium
Summary: “You’re a regular at the coffee shop I work at and you get back at me for all the times I’ve spelt your name wrong by mispronouncing me name in increasingly horrible ways.”Percy works at a campus coffee shop and can't get Jason's name right.





	Mispelling Fate - Prequel

Percy didn’t mean to. Honestly. The coffee shop was just busy and looking at that many names and then writing them down? Percy’s dyslexia was in overdrive. Plus he was studying his Latin homework in between customers. English was bad enough when he wasn’t trying to remember hundreds of different names and phrases and grammar and -- well, you get the idea. The point is, sometimes Percy just spelled people’s names wrong. The fact that it happened to the same guy three times wasn’t his fault. Right?

The first time Percy saw him was during the coffeeshop’s busiest time. The store would be completely empty, perfectly quiet where Percy could stare at his textbooks and try to study. And then in an instant it would fill with students and noise and caffeine and you knew the nearest lecture hall had just released their pupils. The tall blonde came up and ordered and Percy scribbled his name on the side of his cup. Or at least Percy thought he did. Rather than Jason, he’d messily written Yson. It happened to the best of us. When Percy returned the cup, the boy looked at it then glanced at Percy’s shirt, where his nametag hung.

“Uh, thanks, Parker,” he said, filled with light sarcasm.

Percy’s face reddened a little, but he didn’t think much of it. There were more customers. He didn’t even properly realized that the mispronunciation was the response to Percy’s misspell until later, once the cafe was calm again.

The second time he saw him, it was after hours during an extra seminar for “leadership development”. It sounded pretty lame to Percy, but it was required for academic scholarship students and Percy was on a service scholarship himself. He’d taken the extra shift to help over housing cost.

When he walked in, Percy noticed him immediately. He hadn’t looked much at him before because it was so crowded, but now it was hard not to. The boy walked in the room with such a strong sense of purpose you would think he was marching to Congress, not ordering bad overpriced coffee. He was all Roman jawline, blue eyes, and good posture. It made Percy wonder if _he_ should be going to a leadership lecture. He didn’t dwell on it too much as just then his coworker dropped a jug of milk he was trying to put in the machine.

“Frank!” Percy half-shouted out of surprise. 

_That’s what you get for ogling customers, Jackson._

“Here, let me help,” he said, feeling bad. Frank was a pretty clumsy person: he was very big but very self conscious, which didn’t help his movements. But he was also one of the nicest people Percy had ever met.  
“No, I got it, sorry, you go help them,” Frank replied, nodding his head towards the three people that decided they were ready to order right when he wasn’t there. Percy shook his head and went to the register.

By the time he got all of their orders, Frank was finished cleaning enough to help him make the drinks, leaving Percy to call out the names. He’s favorite job. He didn’t stumble too much through Leo, but Piper got turned into Pepper and Annabeth was just him saying Ann and mumbling off. Luckily the girl with bouncy curls understood him.

“Uhh, Asyn? Nsoyn? I’m sorry, dude, you’re the only one left, just take it.” Percy exasperated.

The blonde guy came up with his leadership buddies chuckling. “Pleasure doing business with you, Peter.”

The whole not saying his name right on purpose miffed him a little -- and by the cool and calm way the A-son guy said definitely showed on purpose. It reminded him of his high school principal Mr. D who refused to correctly say Percy’s name, no matter how many times they met in the office. Which was, admittedly, a lot. However, Percy struck his best customer smile and replied, “Anytime,” before turning to make sure Frank wasn’t spilling anything else.

The third time it was a game. Percy was studying and everything was floating around. He didn’t even look up at the person who was reading out their order and quickly set the machine to work before staring at his notes again. He was pretty sure he’d read the same passage over a hundred times at this point and he still didn’t understand it. He was almost glad when the machine beeped and pulled him away from his study. That was until he went to write the name on the cup. He stared at the order for awhile trying to force the letters to stop doing flips so he could copy it. He sighed and wrote what he could. He threw an extra vowel or two in for good measure.

When he handed the cup back, realizing it was the blonde smirk from the seminar, he didn’t even bother trying to say the name. He smiled something that might have looked like a grimace and held the drink out. Percy thought he was in the clear. Percy thought wrong. The guy looked at his cup, stifled a chuckle, and replied, “Thanks, Pietro,”

Percy’s blush was followed by the crinkle of his nose. “Is it really that bad?”

He shook his head, “Nah, you’re fine. You dyslexic?” Percy nodded. “I’ve got a few friends that are too. I’m Jason,” Blue eyes held out his hand, not dropping his smirk at all. Percy shook it.

“Percy,” he replied, only because he didn’t know what else to say. Their hands stayed connected for slightly too long.  
Rather than leaving, Jason pulled up a counter seat right in front of Percy’s books. After taking a long sip from his drink -- honestly it was amazing Percy was even getting the orders right today -- he asked what Percy was studying.

“Uh, I’m an oceanography major, but this is for my Latin class,” Jason made a face.

“Why are you taking a Latin class?”

Percy thought that was a little pointed, but his own ADHD made him blurt out things all the time, so he wasn’t too bothered.

“My uncle, Dr. Brunner, he teaches the course and I thought why not?”

Percy must not have concealed his dissatisfaction with that choice very well as Jason laughed fully in response. He had a nice laugh, the kind of person that tucks their head in and shakes when they laugh. In fact, it was cute enough that Percy wasn’t bothered by the fact that he was laughing at him.

“Been there,” he replied, which surprised Percy. “My dad is big on expectations and I ended up minoring in Latin, which I think I would have rathered stay as far away from as possible.”

“Minoring? I don’t think I can get through this class, let alone go through with a minor.”

“Maybe I can tutor you,” Jason supplied. His normal smirk was replaced with a soft gaze that made Percy blush.

“I mean, if you can get me to pass midterms, I would do anything.” He shook his head. Him passing midterms was about as likely as him flying a pegasus. Percy looked up at Jason, who had glint in his eyes that made him question his word usage. “I mean not _anything_ , like there’s crimes and stuff,” Percy mumbled off, welcoming Jason interrupting him.

“Okay, I tutor you for this course. You pass, you go with me.”

Percy choked a little. That certainly one way to ask someone out. “Like the whole class, not just midterms?” Jason nodded. He weighed in his mind for a moment. One one hand, Jason could be a weird coffee murderer. One the other he was pretty cute. And Percy was definitely going to need help with Latin. Eventually, he nodded and held out his hand.

“You gotta deal, Jason.”

“Pleasure doing business with you, Percy.”

**Author's Note:**

> So there you go, I am pretty sure I am going to turn this into a slow burn with Jason being Percy's tutor, so this is the separate prequel one shot. Anyways, hope you enjoyed, if you did, please comment your thoughts.
> 
> You can find more at my tumblr: blueneptunium


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